Predictably Irrational – The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely, is a best-selling book about sociology, with a special focus on behavioral economics. Here’s a quick resume of what I’ve learned from reading it:
- Everything’s relative. We assess things by comparison. Use a decoy, something that’s very similar to another thing but notably worse, to make people choose the second option.
- Anchors. We do anchor ourselves to initial prices, and make decisions based on our previous decisions. To set a new anchor on a product, make it feel diferent.
- In order to make a man covet a thing, it’s only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
- FREE! is a powerful word. Offer things for free to make people choose them.
- Post the prices in a shop or bar to be visible before or after people get close to the ordering place in order to self-select them or not.
- There are two different worlds: one under market norms and another under social norms. Don’t mix them.
- We do procrastinate. Try to set deadlines for yourself and push other people to commit to their own deadlines.
- You valorate more things when you own them. Try to think about them as a nonowner.
- You can’t keep all doors (options) in your life open. Make decisions and close the ones you like the least or you can’t keep up with.
- When we belive beforehand thatt something will be good, it generally will be good. Raise the expectations of the people to make them ejoy something more.